Page Two

Abandoning the alphabet challenge completely brings me to the Gainward offering. Its PowePack! Ultra/3400PCX XP “Golden Sample” pushes the boat out by increasing the core clock to 430MHz and it sticks 50MHz on the memory for good measure. You’ll have to pay an extra £30 for the privilege though. Naturally, there is a non-modded edition lacking any reference to Samples or Gold which comes in at the standard RRP.

Leadtek is a fan of the two pronged approach too, with its WinFast PX7800GT and GT Extreme cards. The standard edition is… well, standard, while the Extreme ramps up the core to 450MHz and the memory to 1.05GHz. No word on how much this adds to the cost, but a well educated guess is clearly about £30. Both editions come with Ulead Video Studio 8, DVDMovie Factory 3SE, PowerDVD 6.0, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and Prince of Persia: Warrior Within.

MSI does its utmost to best Gigabyte’s silly naming with the NX7800GT-VT2D256E, but doesn’t quite succeed. Specs are untouched and it hits the £299 including VAT RRP right on the head. No word what titles are dished with it, but expect some games to be chucked in with a form of video editing and DVD playing software. Just a hunch… ;)

Point of View tries to convince us to see things its way (hehe) with its “GeForce 7800GT”. I’m almost convinced purely because it doesn’t mess with the name of the card, but it has yet to detail what extra goodies it will bestow on customers when they buy it. Hardware is unaltered.

XFX concludes the first wave of 7800GT releases with its GeForce 7800GT (hey, could sensible branding be catching on?). It’s a by the book model that does nothing to cause nVidia lab rats sleepless nights and while it will be shipping in the company’s usual X shaped packaging, we’ve been given no details whatsoever of what will be inside it.

Fingers crossed that’s the lot, but I know in my heart of hearts that I’ll have to find different adjectives and alternative verbs to add extra editions in a few days. Still, it’s Friday afternoon and no one can be unhappy on a Friday. Whoopee!

Update 18/08/2005:

Incredibly, I don't seem to have missed hardly any of the 7800GT varients since this article was written, though one has just popped up today: the Verto GeForce 7800GT. Kudos for not messing with the name Gigabyte-style boys and while the basic specs haven't been cranked up and the software package remains a mystery I'm sure it's nice (I'm in a good mood today). RRP is an expected £299.99 including VAT, but needless to say you'll find it for less than that online.